Spending two and a half weeks straight with grandparents, no breaks, sounds like every college student's worst nightmare. But when your grandmother offers an all-expenses-paid trip to Spain and Portugal, are you supposed to say no? That's how I ended up on the most unique trip I've ever taken.
My grandmother has always wanted to travel, especially with me. Realizing it was time to knock off her bucket list item, I agreed, and we booked a trip for right after finals this May. I had two rules: go through a tour group so we would not have to make the decisions, and pick an all-ages tour so there would be other people my age. Only one of those happened.
After 10 hours of flying with my plane-anxious grandmother, we arrived to meet the other travelers, and there was nobody close in age to me. Almost everybody was a senior citizen. The first night, I will admit, I panicked. What was I supposed to do for sixteen days surrounded by older travelers? Then I reframed it and decided to embrace it. Here I was, in Europe - how could I complain?
The tour went all around the Iberian Peninsula, stopping in 11 cities, including Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, and Seville. The sights were amazing. I was very much on a tourist trip, and while I would have loved to feel more of the local culture, what I experienced was tremendous.
There were other travelers from the US, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, with wild stories - a famous pilgrimage trail, river cruises, even a trip to Antarctica. Everyone told me how exciting it is to be young, how much time I have, and how little reason there is to already know what I am doing. That was great to hear, because I constantly feel behind, with no direction. They told me to travel, experiment, and keep trying new things. I still need to convince myself of that rather than hear other people's validation, but it was a nice reminder.
Spending 16 days with people reflecting on their lives forced me to reflect on mine, and I came away with a clearer picture of what I wanted. I also learned to rely on myself and bring myself joy, sitting with my own thoughts whenever I had the time.
I will not lie, it is exasperating traveling with older companions. They get winded walking up a flight of stairs, and we spent a lot of time sitting and eating because they needed the breaks. We skipped the more adventurous things other travelers were doing, like ziplining across a canyon, and even skipped a festival in Barcelona.
My favorite experiences were walking through Toledo and Grenada, with their old-town architecture and narrow streets. Grenada felt like a cross of so many cultures. I also loved Santiago de Compostela, watching hikers arrive after finishing their pilgrimage journeys. When I tried my broken, minimal Spanish, people listened patiently, and I felt connected to people I had only brief interactions with - we proved we could communicate without words, and that felt surprisingly powerful.
My biggest takeaways were that I desperately want to go back to Spain, and that you can learn a lot by listening. I was terrified going into this trip, since it was so far out of my comfort zone to travel alone with my grandmother. It was not always breezy, but it was worth it, and I do not regret a single day - I would suggest traveling anywhere you can, and yes, that includes with your grandparents.